


Strong Enough

by brightestorangedawn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, I don't know what else to tag this, RotS AU, Vaderdala - Freeform, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27795424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightestorangedawn/pseuds/brightestorangedawn
Summary: Anakin falls to the Dark Side. Padme survives to live another day. Both of them must find the strength within themselves to overcome their past.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Strong Enough

**I**

  
  


Padmé was dead.

She was gone.

She knew it, she felt it. Her body was so weary and her heart was so broken. Every cell inside her was screaming. There was no way to go on. She had to give up, she wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t strong enough.

She wasn’t _strong_ enough.

No.

She _was_ strong enough.

She. Was. Strong. Enough.

And so she wasn’t dead, she didn’t die. She lived. She lived for them, her two children, her little babies, so small in her arms. She lived for them because how could she not? How could she leave them all alone in this big cold universe when they were so little, and she was their mother, and she loved them?

So she didn’t die, even though she wanted to. Even though she hurt so much she didn’t think she could ever possibly be okay again, that she would be in agony for the rest of her life if her heart kept on feeling this broken.

But she lived, and bit by bit, little by little, she didn’t hurt so much anymore. Every day she felt a little better, every day her two little babies mended a piece of her poor aching heart. As the leaves on the trees changed colour around her, she began to feel better. And then, as they began to fall away from the branches of the old trees, so too did her memories of the past.

  
  


**I**

  
  


Anakin was dead.

He was gone.

He knew it, he felt it. His body was so weary and his heart was so broken. There was no way to go on. He had to give up, he wasn’t strong enough. He wasn’t strong enough.

He wasn’t _strong_ enough.

He would _never_ be strong enough.

He was dead, but he didn’t die. He stayed alive but Force knows how much he wished he hadn’t.

Every day was agony. His wounds healed, only minor injuries inflicted by the heat of the lava on that awful, awful night, but he wished he had fallen into it and been burned up and been rewarded for it all, for everything he had done, by ceasing to exist.

Every day he felt a little worse. Slowly, surely, hate infiltrated every part of him that had once been light and turned it to darkness.

Every day he would look at himself in the mirror and see someone else, a yellow-eyed stranger, staring back at him from the place Anakin Skywalker had once been.

Every day he thought of her. Every day he ached for every. Every day the pain grew, more and more and more, until it consumed him, it became his very being. It became who he was.

He was Darth Vader and life was pain. Existence was suffering.

  
  


**II**

  
  


Every day  Padmé  thought about him a little less. At first he was all she thought about, all she  _could_ think about, so full of worry for him, so full of betrayal for herself.  But each day, as she held her babies in her arms, and she watched them grow and change and become strong like she was, she thought about him less and less. One day she could look in her son’s eyes and not see his father staring back at her. One day she could hear her daughter’s laugh without thinking of the gentle ease of his. One day she could even think his name (and she only thought it, she never said it out loud) without it tearing her soul into pieces.

_Anakin_ .

  
  


** II **

Anakin tried to forget her, but he couldn’t. One day he remembered the softness of her kiss. One day he remembered the smell of her skin. One day he remembered the gleam in her eyes on their wedding day.

One day he even remembered the awe in his voice when he told her their baby was a blessing.

And every day, every single day, he remembered her name.

_Padmé._

  
  


** III **

  
  


One day Padmé could look at another man, and one day she found she could even kiss him. It was a slow, comfortable courtship. He took his time. He knew she was hurting.

She could love Clovis. She could love him in a familiar and comfortable way. They could spend their time together companionably, and they could raise her two little babies (who were not so little anymore) together, and she knew they would all be safe. She had a safe man to love and be loved by. She had a safe man to be a father to her children. 

She only thought of  _him_ , her old love, her first love, her  _true_ love, when it was dark and she was alone, and her thoughts were safe behind her closed eyelids, squeezed  tight to stop the tears.

_Anakin._

  
  


**III**

  
  


Anakin tried to stop it, tried to smother it, do whatever he could to rid himself of the feeling before it was too late, before it made him too weak to go on. But he was too weak. There was nothing he could do. The weight of all that he had lost was crushing him, slowly, slowly, every day, and he was too weak to go on. He couldn’t go on.

He tried to forget. He _needed_ to forget. But he was doomed to remember. He was cursed. Every day he remembered it all. Every hour he felt the weight of it pushing him further and further to the ground.

He thought of _her_ , his first love, his true love, his _only_ love, when it was dark and he was alone, and he could give himself over completely to the Force and try to seek out any glimpse of her presence from across the stars.

_Padmé._

  
  


**IV**

  
  


The work never ceased and Padmé never shied away from it. It was every day and it was every night but it needed to be done. Who else would do it? Who else would save them all? Who else would make the galaxy safe for her two little children?

They worked hard for little gain, but any progress was a celebration. Even if only a single being could be saved from the clutches of darkness, from a punishment they didn’t deserve, then they were doing the right thing. Every victory brought her closer to herself, no longer just a leader in the political sphere but a leader in battle, her belief in all that was once good about the galaxy unwavering, her aim with a blaster deadly.

She watched the squadrons of battleships flying away from the rebel base and prayed for another victory. Good versus evil. A tale as old as time.

She tried to forget that the leader of that evil was the one who she had once thought to be so very good.

  
  


**IV**

  
  


The rise of the Empire marched on and on. They marched onto every planet, every moon. Their army, all in white, marched everywhere and took everything. And each time, without fail, there was their leader, all in black, his red blade shining as he ordered them to go further. Ordering them to go further so he could go further, further and further and further away from the pain. Further from who he was. Further from Anakin Skywalker so he could get closer to Vader.

But it didn’t work. He tried to run, he tried to hide, but he couldn’t escape  _them_ , he couldn’t escape  _him_ . 

He could try as hard as he could but he could _never_ escape Anakin Skywalker.

And then one day, he was so weary, so tired, that he decided to stop trying. One day he decided to stop marching. One day he decided to stop filling himself with darkness and return to the light.

One day he looked at himself and he saw who he really was. He was Anakin Skywalker.

And finally he was strong enough.

  
  


**V**

  
  


The battle lines were drawn. She was waiting for the final attack to begin, hiding at the front of what was left of her group with her blaster safely tucked away.

Padmé leaned forward slowly, hoping to get a better view of her opponents in front of her. The necklace on the chain that she always wore around her neck slipped forward.  A necklace carved by the hands of a child desperate to show her how he really felt.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, s he saw him standing there,  his tal l  frame cloaked  in the shadows. 

She looked at him. She met his eyes.

They were blue, like she remembered. 

  
  


**V**

  
  


As they infiltrated the base, the troopers spreading out quickly to cover more ground, he suddenly felt it. After so long trying to find her suddenly she was here.

Desperately he searched for her until finally he found the room where she and what was left of her army were hiding.

Her presence overwhelmed him. He yelled at his army to stand down, to put their weapons away.

And then he saw her, after so many years. Peering at him from where she hid as if he was something to be afraid of. And he was. Or, he had _used_ to be.

But now he was not Darth Vader. Now he was Anakin Skywalker.

He looked at her. He knelt down, throwing his weapon to the ground before him.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This story came to me in a rush one day when I was doing laundry of all things. It’s a bit of an “artier” style than I would usually write in, but I was just inspired and had to write this. It practically wrote itself! Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed, and would appreciate any feedback – good or bad! I might write more to this at some point in time but I’m not sure yet.


End file.
